


To Search for Nothing

by Fracktastic



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, post-New Caprica
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 08:08:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30035649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fracktastic/pseuds/Fracktastic
Summary: During the liberation of New Caprica, Saul finds Laura badly wounded in a Cylon detention cell.Canon compliant through Season 2.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	To Search for Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own BSG or any of the characters. This work was written for educational purposes and I derive no profit from it.
> 
> Trigger warning: Story includes violence, torture, medical gore, and PTSD
> 
> See end of chapter for detailed notes.

Saul has been down this hall a few times before, but never before as the one with the gun. 

They storm from cell to cell, blasting the locks open if need be. Some are empty. A few occupants, they’ve found too late. Others are largely unharmed and able to help with those who can’t move under their own steam. Some of the detainees are instantly recognized - resistance members who are handed guns and put in charge of continuing the liberation. Time is short, but they  _ must _ check every cell. Others are simply exhorted to run and find a ship - get themselves there, and anyone else they can carry or drag if it comes to that. 

As they move down the hall, they start hearing more excitement from the cells - detainees are waiting to meet them, suddenly invigorated at the prospect of freedom.

It is pure chance that he’s the one to open the door to that cell. When he sees the bloodstained jumpsuit, the unmoving figure, and the shock of red hair, he fears the worst. He goes to check - has to know for sure. The old man will want to know. 

He kneels beside her to check for a pulse. A wave of relief washes over him when she jerks her wrist free and tilts her face to look at him.

One eye is swollen shut. Half her face is mottled with purple and dotted with crusts of dried blood. Her lip is split, her nose obviously broken.

“Laura… We’ve got you,” he says with a tenderness that surprises him. He has never  _ liked _ this woman, but has grown to respect her. “I’ve got you - the old man’s on his way. We’re going home.”

He moves to slide his arms under her, to lift her. He’s not sure what he expects, but it is not the slow, pained enunciation that creeps out from her nearly unmoving jaw. 

“Stop.”

He recoils from the words and looks her over, this time really looking.

His first impression, that he had found a corpse, was not far off. Every patch of exposed skin was mottled with bruises of various shades and stages of healing. Around her neck, an angry red line as if she’d been strangled. One leg twisted inward at an odd angle - she would not be walking out of the cell, he realized. 

“Leave,” she manages, reaching up with her good hand to support her swollen jaw. He realizes she is eying his side arm with something like longing.

She had been taken over a month ago this time. In the past, it had never been more than a few days - they’d ask questions, maybe keep her from sleeping, then release her without a mark. It was as if her relatively unscathed return was meant to prove to the people that there was no torture. This time, they had not spared her. They didn’t plan on letting her go, he realizes.

“You don’t mean that,” he says firmly, “you’re going to be fine.”

When he lifts her, she is both too light and too warm and he hears her hiss with pain. She is cradling one arm against her chest as he settles her into his arms and complies weakly and unilaterally when he tells her to put an arm around his neck. The other limb remains limp against her chest. Dislocated at least, he thinks, wishing there were time and medics to split and bandage the worst injuries before moving her. Basic training was a very long time ago, but he realizes that with these injuries, she probably shouldn’t be moved like this. 

As he carries her down the hall he thinks briefly of handing her off to one of the younger soldiers, making this someone else’s problem, but he can’t - he owes the old man as much. He will see her brought to _Galactica_ and handed off to Cottle and his team to patch her up and put her back on her feet. 

At some point between the prison and the nearest ship, she stops holding on.

\---

Bill anticipates a triumphant call from Colonial One because  _ of course _ she’d insist on leaving New Caprica on  _ her ship _ . And if not that, then certainly sight of her stepping triumphant out of a raptor. He waits. When neither comes to pass, he asks the deck officer of they’ve had word from anyone on  _ the list _ . Some names are rattled off - quorum members, Galactica’s crew that had been permitted to settle planet-side, and a few irreplaceable professionals and technicians, but not her name and not Saul’s.   


“The captains of the fleet are still reporting in, sir” the officer conveys, as if sensing his disappointment, “should I inform you if anyone specific comes up?”

_ Of course,  _ he thinks. His best friend is missing and so is the woman he l- learned to respect and collaborate with. “No,” Adama says brusquely, “thank you,”  _ it isn’t the example to set for the men.  _

Dread settles and hardens in his chest like a fresh pouring of cement. 

\---

Laura hears the commotion - the gunshots and banging and shouts. She shivers. It’s always so cold now. Is it a new prisoner? A revolt? She can’t muster the strength to look.

Whatever it is, it seems to be getting louder. The gunshots stop, and she hears voices - human voices. Some shouting, some jubilant, all panicked and urgent and tinged with something that might be hope.

She hears something at the door of her cell and suddenly, a man is crouching beside her, reaching down to her. He sees his gun before she recognizes his face.

She remembers thinking that a bullet was all it would take. Wanting to ask - beg - for that release, and realizing that even if she could enunciate the request, she couldn’t  _ really _ ask for it. But she could ask that he simply leave.

And he didn’t.

She remembers a searing pain as he lifted her - the reopening of some old wound or involuntary rearrangement of some bone shard slicing a new one. 

Nausea.

Shortness of breath.

Darkness.

She drifts.

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s notes:  
> This story was inspired by a fic I read on here years ago and haven’t been able to track down since. I would *love* to give proper credit to the author and fic that inspired it (and to reread that fabulous piece of writing), so please let me know if you’re familiar with it! I’ve spent hours looking with no success.
> 
> The premise was “5 ways Laura Roslin didn’t die and one way she did.” Scenarios explored included a deliberate Chamalla overdose (with Billy’s help) some time in S2 and possibly a no-attacks AU scenario where she dies of cancer in a cabin on Caprica, watching the wildlife. 
> 
> It also included the scenario that inspired this story: Saul finds her in a cylon holding cell, seriously injured and she asks to be left behind. Realizing the severity of her injuries, he agrees and plans to tell Adama that Laura took a bullet for him during the liberation. He leaves her, and she counts the ships as they jump away.
> 
> This story explores the opposite side of that: Laura’s saved and foisted back into leadership and the public eye while still recovering from extensive mental and physical trauma. 
> 
> Title is derived from Goethe's "Gefunden."


End file.
